“All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.” ~Susan Sontag

I was challenged on via social media to do a black and white photo documentation of 5 days in my life. The last of the 5 days was a bit touch and go, since my Doula client was in early labor.  As I recover from attending that beautiful birth, I now share with you a glimpse of my life in pictures.

Black and white photography has been a love of mine for a while, heck…I used to shoot in film up until about 5 years ago. To think of the light and dark as one in an image helps to see the world as one full of contrasts, both externally and internally, that lead to beauty. There is beauty, and then it melts away. Yet, there is always beauty. And you can create beauty, every single freaking day.

My husband and I live right down the street from a record shop. In the Winter it’s a ritual to go there and look and listen.

A quick jog around the beautiful Biltmore Estate before my week gets super busy. It was a totally gorgeous and imaginative experience.

My hand painted reclaimed teapots before shipment. They dance together nicely in this picture. I love sending art to my clients that is of what they want to experience and desire. Making custom art work makes my heart full and grateful.

A relaxing moment captured after mailing out my Christmas orders. Relief. Breath. Sleep. My intuition told me to sleep, as if I it knew I’d be woken early the next morn to be ready for the birth of a gorgeous baby girl.

La luna burning bright. It’s time for a woman to become a mother. I kept this image and thought hidden to protect my client’s privacy on the last day of my photo challenge. But my-oh-my, the moon really graces us all with deep intuitive body wisdom, don’t you think? Stay tuned here for a blog I’ve been writing in my head for years about the wisdom of life learned through birth.

I write this from a sleepy mind and a really grateful wide open heart. To document a week like this feels like a gift to my soul. I don’t always have such arty action packed, birth filled moments in my life. And to be honest, I am glad for the pulse of sometimes a lot of stuff going on, and sometimes not a lot of stuff going on–it keeps me in a sweet relationship with balance.

I am grateful that I can and did take action to be present and document this week–in black and white.

Won’t you join me in giving yourself a gift from your soul? Take this time now and document, dance, write, play, make…it’s all in your hands, you gorgeous creative being, you.